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One of the base elements of Magic play is deckbuilding. Without it, we'd all be playing clone decks from the card shop shelves. Unfortunately for some players, especially newer ones, determining the right spells for a deck is tricky if not difficult.

Fortunately, math can be applied to this problem. You've heard of the MIT students playing poker in Vegas, right? They use Probability Theory to determine what cards would be played next, then bet accordingly. For us, we can use basic probability methods to determine not only when, but how often a spell would be drawn.

For this article, I will be referring to my Cleric deck (mono-White Weenie). Now let's say I add the card ´´Awe Strike

´´ to my deck. Since there is only one of this card in my deck, the chances of me drawing it off the top is 1/60. The chances of me drawing the card later are much higher. Let's say I am playing and it is my 20th draw. I have drawn 26 so far (starting hand of 7 + 19 draws). The chances of me drawing Awe Strike

's effect. It still costs me all my mana, but all the enchantments are gone.

Now you're probably wondering ´´I have a burn deck, so how are these explanations helping me?´´ Well, with burn decks, you have to spend less mana and create more damage, a perfect test for spell effectiveness. Let's say you're looking at Blaze